Japanese firms launch Stories shingle

Japanese advertising conglom Hakuhodo DY Holdings and vidgame producer Sega Corp. have launched Stories -- a production company aimed at partnering with Hollywood writers, directors and producers to generate film and TV programming based on Japanese content.The Japanese intellectual properties will include games, books, anime, manga comics, toys, films and TV. The new entity will emphasize developing English language projects targeted towards the global market.The announcement noted that the Stories production company has access to their parent companies' titles and characters that have a strong worldwide fan base.Stories also said that it has already optioned rights to a title from Japanese scifi author Yasutaka Tsutsui, who wrote "Paprika" and "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," along with format rights of an unidentified Japanese TV programHakuhodo's Tomoya Suzuki serves as CEO and creative producer. Contact Dave McNary at dave.mcnary@variety.com